Anyone who owns or keeps a
dog is held strictly liable under our law for any damage caused by
the dog, irrespective of whether the owner or keeper was negligent
in controlling the dog. The statute is General Statutes § 22-357,
and the relevant portions of the statute state:

"If any dog does any
damage to either the body or property of any person, the owner or
keeper . . . shall be liable for such damage, except when such
damage has been occasioned to the body or property of a person who,
at the time such damage was sustained, was committing a trespass or
other tort, or was teasing, tormenting or abusing such dog."

A "keeper" of a dog means
someone other than the owner who harbors or has possession of any
dog.

The statute creates two
exceptions to this rule of "strict liability." The first is that
the statute exempts from liability the owner or keeper whose dog
does damage to a person who was committing a "trespass or other
tort." The word "tort" means a wrongful act. "Committing a
trespass or other tort" means more than merely entering on the
property or in the area where the dog was, but rather entering to
commit an injury or a wrongful act. This means such wrongful acts
committed against the person or property of the owner or keeper or
(his/her) family, or similar wrongful acts, against which the dog,
with its characteristic loyalty, would take defensive or protective
action, or those, if committed against the dog, as would likely
excite it to use its natural weapons of defense.

The second exception
applies if you find that plaintiff was "teasing, tormenting, or
abusing" the dog. Teasing, tormenting or abusing a dog means
engaging in actions that would naturally annoy or irritate a dog and
provoke it to retaliation. Such actions are those of such a nature
as would naturally antagonize the dog and cause it to attack and
which are improper in the sense that they are without justification.1
Playing with the dog in a friendly manner does not fall within the
definition of "teasing, tormenting, or abusing" the dog.2

So the elements that the
plaintiff must prove are 1) that the defendants were the owners or
keepers of a dog, 2) that the dog did, in the language of the
statute, "any damage to . . . the body or property" of the
plaintiff, and 3) that neither of the exceptions applies.
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There should usually be
a charge on the issue of proximate cause to establish a nexus
between the actions of the dog and the injury of which the plaintiff
complains.

N.B. For a child under
seven years of age at the time the damage was done, the statute
creates a presumption that the child was not committing a trespass
or other tort or teasing, tormenting or abusing the dog, so that the
burden of establishing any such conduct is on the defendant. See
General Statutes § 22-357.